NCKU Ship Model Towing Tank accredited by NK on Feb. 10

Academic research is the strong support of industrial development. The NCKU’s ship model towing tank, the largest in Taiwan, obtained the ISO 9001 accreditation by Class NK earlier this year.

Its owner, the Department of Systems and Naval Mechatronic Engineering spent six years to improve its total experiment quality, facilities, and operational efficiency.

In the future, domestic and international shipyards can evaluate ship performance here in design stage. It will save cost and prevent leaking key design technology.

The accreditation ceremony is held on Feb. 10 at Yun-ping Bldg., NCKU, Tainan. The Chief of Accreditation Department of Class NK, Mr.Toshiro Koiwa, awards the certificate to President Jenny H.-J. Su of NCKU.

When shipyards develop new types of ships, it is necessary to conduct model test. Domestic shipyards used to commission commercial towing tanks in Europe or America.

NCKU Towing Tank has been defined as teaching and research oriented for a long time.

Since six years ago, under the support of CSBC shipbuilding company, NCKU Towing Tank has been acquiring new facilities, improving quality and management system. It obtained financial support of “The Academia-Industry Technology Development League for Low Exhaust Ship Design, Test, and Accreditation” Project from Ministry of Science and Technology in 2016. This will promote the use and application of NCKU-Towing Tank in a wide range to raise the competing capability for Taiwan’s shipbuilding industry.

Saving energy and reduction carbon release is an international trend. IMO issued the Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) in 2013 to regulate the energy efficiency index for ships sailing in international seas and built after 2013.

To make sure the ships will meet the regulation during sea trials, ship yards have to conduct experiments for evaluating performance in towing tank in the design stage under the supervision of ship class association. After this ISO 9001 accreditation, NCKU Towing Tank’s performance test results will be recognized for EEDI.

NCKU Towing Tank can perform resistance test, self-propulsion test, propeller open water test, wake survey, ink test, and sea keeping test. The first three tests can predict the energy consumption, energy efficiency, and gas exhaust. These are all ISO 9001 accredited by NK. The other tests will be also accredited soon in the near future.

Taiwan’s shipbuilding industry has a certain scale. There are several dozens of commercial ships built every year in Taiwan. Before building, model tests are performed to predict performance and provide to international class which supervises and records the building process in order to make sure ships matching safety regulation according to their class. After the construction is completed, the class also examine the ship’s real performance by sea trials.。

For a long time, Taiwan’s shipyards performed their model tests in European or American commercial towing tanks. The timing is not so fitting into shipyards’ schedule and the time and costs are both high. Moreover, newly developed key technology or design is not esay to keep secret when commissioned to foreign labs.

After ISO9001 accreditation, NCKU Towing Tank will play as a service platform for industry, academia, government, and research sectors. It will provide the best service for all Taiwan’s shipyards assisting the upgrade of shipbuilding technology. For long term, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia all have shipyards, and may be the taget international customers for NCKU Towing Tank.

NCKU Towing Tank is about 165m long, 8m wide and 4m deep. It’s the largest in Taiwan, and on the top 5 list of worldwide universities. In the past decades, NCKU professors and students have published near a hundred journal papers or conference papers. It also performed pressure signal test and resistance test of underwater vehicles, and thus play an important role in the indigenous naval ship development. It contributes to the national security by its profession.

Class NK is an association for classifying ships. Its main business is tomake reagulations for ship safety, and examine ships under construction or in use. As to the end of 2016, there are 9231 ships registered in Class NK. The total registered tonnage is over 245 million. There are more than 20% of ships in the world registered in Class NK.
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